Aliens: Colonial Marines Not Cancelled

Share.

Gearbox president denies the rumors.

By Jimmy Thang

Gearbox Software President Randy Pitchford has denied rumors that Aliens: Colonial Marines has been cancelled. Cancellation talks surfaced when rumors spread that the sci-fi first-person shooter's development was being halted. "Halted," Pitchford exclaimed, is an "inaccurate characterization."

"Aliens isn't canned," Pitchford told Shacknews. He added, "We've made some transformative changes and yes, that's meant some talent changes, but that's not the real story. The true relevance of the story will actually be irrelevant until we release our next game, at which time I hope there will be a lot of interest in what we've done that can produce such results."

Bolstering the cancellation talks was the fact that Gearbox recently laid off several employees. According to Shacknews, between 15 and 25 employees were let go. One source even placed the count at 26.

Some sources attribute the layoffs to lackluster sales of Gearbox's Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway. The console versions of the World War II first-person shooter did not appear in the NPD group's sales chart in either October or September. Though the title did manage to garner a ninth place position on the NPD's PC list for the week of its September 23 launch. However, the game fell off the PC's top 10 list in the subsequent week.

Aliens: Colonial Marines will allow up to four players to play cooperatively together in the universe that was established by the movies. The game was set for a first quarter 2009 launch, although Pitchford did not confirm its release date.

IGN has contacted representatives from both publisher SEGA and developer Gearbox regarding the issue, and will update you as the news comes in.

UPDATE: A SEGA representative has updated IGN with the following confirmation, "Gearbox is still working on Aliens: Colonial Marines for us at SEGA."